Emmer Emmer Howard Waldrop Category="Cereals"Category="Grasses"Category="Wikipedia articles needing factual verification"This article contains information that has not been verified. If you are familiar with the subject matter, please check the article for inaccuracies and modify as needed, citing sources.

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Emmer wheat
Scientific classification
Kingdom:Plantae
Division:Magnoliophyta
Class:Liliopsida
Order:Poales
Family:Poaceae
Genus:Triticum
Species:T. dicoccoides
Binomial name
triticum dicoccoides

Emmer is a low yielding, tall awned Wheat with small grains, with no husk. Occurring in a wild form, Triticum dicoccoides, and a cultivated form Triticum dicoccum. It is closely related to the tetraploid Durum wheat and forms fertile hybrids.

Genetics

Emmer wheat derives from hybridization of the diploid Einkorn wheat with another diploid wild grass, sharing genomes from both to become tetraploid. ????

For a wider discussion, see Wheat

Emmer in prehistory

The oldest geobiological evidence of the einkorn and emmer wheats appears in Anatolia, around Mt. Ararat, dating from approximately 17,000 years BCE. They are possibly much older, perhaps appearing around the end of the last ice age 27,000 years ago. Cultivated since the PPN A, emmer has been found on sites throughout Egypt and the Fertile Crescent, including the Egyptian pyramids. As such, it is one of the oldest grains known to have been used by man. It became an important crop in the Middle East, soon spreading to Europe and the Indian subcontinent. It is called Kuescha in South America. As the staple cereal of prehistory, and the basis of early agriculture, it is said to have made an important contribution to the foundation of civilization. Around 4000 BCE, more productive wheats took emmer's place as the dominant cereal crop.

References